Inlet and Outlet Water Quality of a Treatment Pond in an Extracted Peatland Catchment, Ireland

This dataset was collected alongside other on-site water quality datasets to test the hypothesis that effluents from degraded peatland catchments are highly dynamic and pose a year-round risk to surface waters. Additionally, this dataset was used to evaluate the water treatment performance of a pond excavated at the edge of the catchment.

To investigate this, we measured pH, electrical conductivity, nutrients, SUVA254 (carbon aromaticity), ions, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD₅), and turbidity at the inlet and outlet of the pond during two grab sampling campaigns: one conducted from March to October 2021, and another from September 2022 to April 2023.

Our findings support the hypothesis, revealing high temporal variability in water quality. Additionally, we found that the pond had low or negligible effectiveness in treating soluble components. This dataset provides valuable insights into the hydrochemical dynamics of degraded peatland catchments and their impacts on downstream waters, as well as the effectiveness of treatment ponds as mitigation measures.